Jeremy's Bike Blog

Another chilly night.   Come morning, I was plumb out of water save a half cup frozen in the bottle.  Ceecee had said the Colorado River should be good for filtering and drinking, but Bill warned of Beaver Fever and recommended treatment.  They both agreed to steer clear of water that drains from cattle pasture, and this was definitely that.  It also looked a bit scummy.  No matter, Burns was just a few miles down the road.

Well, it was actually after a climb up to the flat-top.

BTW, check out My Photosperes to see all my 3D photos (fish-eye like when viewed as rectangle) with a proper viewer.

Burns was another Post Office town, though this one wouldn’t be open for a few more hours.

It was another 23 miles to the next town of Dotsero, and I-70.  Gulp.  There was also a church, but no cars, just a female big horn sheep, and she wasn’t forthcoming with the water.

There were also a couple of sheep crossing a LONG railroad span on the other side of the river.  Lucky for them, I only saw 2 trains in over the 18ish hours I was track-side, and a couple of utility rail-trucks which would have been able to stop for them.

Very thankfully, a few miles later, I spotted a spigot, and it worked.  Moreover, my water filter fitted on it.  All the same, I also treated the water with iodine.  I also left a buck tucked into the handle because I’m such a honest guy.  Actually, I practice a lot of superstition, even though I don’t believe in it at all, and I don’t want to jinx my amazing luck.

So, with sufficient water, I was in no real hurry.  I stopped to read every sign and check out every boat ramp, especially after spotting this at the Colorado River Ranch School House.

Next time I ride this way, I’m going to find someone to rent me a raft that we drop in at Catamouont, and pull out at Dotsero.  Me and possibly +1 will bike there, throw bike(s) in raft, and then ride on.  It’s kinda a dream to bike and boat that sprouted from a seed my cycle mate through the Baltics, Terry, planted last summer.

One of the boat ramps I checked out was quite sandy at the bottom, which led to my first tumble of the tour, and that I took to be a great opportunity for a selfie.

It was further on that I encountered the Colorado River Ranch School House.  Fascinating history of schooling for kids of early pioneers.  One of the coolest things about the place was a natural amphitheater of skree fields in the distance that emitted a faint crack, then rockslide thunder a couple times a minute.  What a great place for a tiny school (non-sarcastic, the school was far from rock slides, on other side of river).

The road was fairly hilly, climbing up the edges of the river canyon, then dropping back in.  More fodder for daydreams about floating down the river.  FWIW, it would take 2 days to float what I leisurely biked (ample breaks) in about 4 hours.

Somewhere on the Colorado River Road (rocky waspy overhang):

I dropped down into Dotsero and I-70 and to my chagrin, there were no services whatsoever in town.  It was a park of double-wides, and now my choices (or so I thought) were 1) Bike 1 parched hour East to Gypsum, get water, then bike an hour back to resume progress toward Moab. 2) Bike 2 parched hours to Glenwood Springs.  3) Filter and treat water directly from now even lower elevation Colorado River.  4) Beg for some water from someone in Dotsero.  Begging, aka, asking for help, has historically been excruciating for me.  I don’t know why.  I like helping other people that want and appreciate it, and people on my trip (a passing road/day-cyclist outside of Steamboat, in particular) have directly and explicitly encouraged me to ask for and get help when and as I need it.

So I toodled around ‘town’.  I didn’t ask the migrant yard workers, they would have had to oblige by giving me what they brought for their day of work.  I asked a woman taking out her recycling.  English was her second language, and I tried a little Spanish with her.  She was very happy to help with my terrible Spanish and my pending dehydration, and gave me both tap and bottled water.  I said I’d prefer just tap, but she said it wasn’t the best for drinking and has a bit of a taste to it.  That’s a theme in these parts.  So is fracking.

A few miles on a frontage road led to a paved trail that runs parallel to I-70, which turns out has 4 water-providing rest stops (for cars and trail-users both) between Dotsero and Glenwood Springs.  So it turns out that I didn’t really need the help of a gift of drinking water, but I’m still glad I thought I did and that I got help.

A few miles into this, I spotted a cyclist with saddle bags and headed in the same direction.  It’s obviously more common to encounter touring cyclists travelling in the opposite direction, so I was excited to meet another adventurer.  Keith and I chatted for a bit and I learned that the bags were oxygen and that he was out for a day cycle.  I didn’t want to impose, and I guess he didn’t either, so after a bit we wished each other a good day and I carried on.  He wasn’t far behind me when I stopped to take a photo, and when he caught up we took the opportunity to talk a bit more.  Turns out neither of us was in a particular hurry, and I learned a bit more of his story.   It’s his story to tell, but I’ll just say that once more it left me feeling both humbled and inspired to live every day to the fullest.  We shared the remaining miles of his day trip together and shared several heartfelt words and hugs before we parted ways.  Against my protestations, he plied me with gifts to help in my travels.  I’m honored and privileged to have had Keith be my first cycle mate of this tour (joining the honorable ranks of Terry and Carolyn from my last tour).

I rolled into Glenwood Springs at about 5:30.  I grabbed and guzzled an OJ at the Kum & Go gas station, hoping that some vitamin C or something in it would help the non-negligible and increasing soreness of my achilles tendons, based on a vague recollection that it might be tendonitis.  I happily found out follow morning, it definitely did help, and I will be making sure to consume enough citrus and fruit things from here on out.

I had some fish tacos and beer in town at Slope & Hatch.  I had basically the same for lunch in Steamboat Springs just before I left, so it’s getting to be the theme meal of the trip (in land-locked CO, of all places).

Daylight was running out, and there were no cheap hotels in town.  There were also no campgrounds, but there was a nice long rails-to-trails trail heading to Carbondale, the next town along my evolving route.

I cycled until dusk and until I found a strip of sagebrush maybe 30 feet wide between the highway and the trail, with a small clearing where nobody could see me from either once I was sitting or laying.  It had a massive horizontal ranch meadow on the other side of the trail, and a massive vertical canyon wall on the other side of the highway, so I was very unlikely to be noticed.  It was noisy and fairly unscenic, but I had cellular data for the first night in four, and I had earplugs.  I used the cellular data to post yesterday’s entry, then called it a night.

Route for the day:

BTW, the blue lines are Google Maps guessing that I’m driving.  A flattering heuristic … I’m not, I swear! 😀